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<h1>Test reporter documentation</h1>
This page...
<ul>
	<li>Displaying <a href="#html">results in HTML</a></li>
	<li>Displaying and <a href="#other">reporting results</a> in other
	formats</li>
	<li>Using <a href="#cli">SimpleTest from the command line</a></li>
	<li>Using <a href="#xml">Using XML</a> for remote testing</li>
</ul>
<div class="content">

<p>SimpleTest pretty much follows the MVC pattern
(Model-View-Controller). The reporter classes are the view and the model
is your test cases and their hiearchy. The controller is mostly hidden
from the user of SimpleTest unless you want to change how the test cases
are actually run, in which case it is possible to override the runner
objects from within the test case. As usual with MVC, the controller is
mostly undefined and there are other places to control the test run.</p>

<p><a class="target" name="html">
<h2>Reporting results in HTML</h2>
</a></p>
<p>The default test display is minimal in the extreme. It reports
success and failure with the conventional red and green bars and shows a
breadcrumb trail of test groups for every failed assertion. Here's a
fail...
<div class="demo">
<h1>File test</h1>
<span class="fail">Fail</span>: createnewfile-&gt;True assertion failed.<br>
<div
	style="padding: 8px; margin-top: 1em; background-color: red; color: white;">1/1
test cases complete. <strong>0</strong> passes, <strong>1</strong> fails
and <strong>0</strong> exceptions.</div>
</div>
And here all tests passed...
<div class="demo">
<h1>File test</h1>
<div
	style="padding: 8px; margin-top: 1em; background-color: green; color: white;">1/1
test cases complete. <strong>1</strong> passes, <strong>0</strong> fails
and <strong>0</strong> exceptions.</div>
</div>
The good news is that there are several points in the display hiearchy
for subclassing.
</p>
<p>For web page based displays there is the <span class="new_code">HtmlReporter</span>
class with the following signature...
<pre>
class HtmlReporter extends SimpleReporter {
    public HtmlReporter($encoding) { ... }
    public makeDry(boolean $is_dry) { ... }
    public void paintHeader(string $test_name) { ... }
    public void sendNoCacheHeaders() { ... }
    public void paintFooter(string $test_name) { ... }
    public void paintGroupStart(string $test_name, integer $size) { ... }
    public void paintGroupEnd(string $test_name) { ... }
    public void paintCaseStart(string $test_name) { ... }
    public void paintCaseEnd(string $test_name) { ... }
    public void paintMethodStart(string $test_name) { ... }
    public void paintMethodEnd(string $test_name) { ... }
    public void paintFail(string $message) { ... }
    public void paintPass(string $message) { ... }
    public void paintError(string $message) { ... }
    public void paintException(string $message) { ... }
    public void paintMessage(string $message) { ... }
    public void paintFormattedMessage(string $message) { ... }
    protected string _getCss() { ... }
    public array getTestList() { ... }
    public integer getPassCount() { ... }
    public integer getFailCount() { ... }
    public integer getExceptionCount() { ... }
    public integer getTestCaseCount() { ... }
    public integer getTestCaseProgress() { ... }
}
</pre> Here is what some of these methods mean. First the display methods that
you will probably want to override...
<ul class="api">
	<li><span class="new_code">HtmlReporter(string $encoding)</span> <br>
	is the constructor. Note that the unit test sets up the link to the
	display rather than the other way around. The display is a mostly
	passive receiver of test events. This allows easy adaption of the
	display for other test systems beside unit tests, such as monitoring
	servers. The encoding is the character encoding you wish to display the
	test output in. In order to correctly render debug output when using
	the web tester, this should match the encoding of the site you are
	trying to test. The available character set strings are described in
	the PHP <a
		href="http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.htmlentities.php">html_entities()</a>
	function.</li>
	<li><span class="new_code">void paintHeader(string
	$test_name)</span> <br>
	is called once at the very start of the test when the first start event
	arrives. The first start event is usually delivered by the top level
	group test and so this is where <span class="new_code">$test_name</span>
	comes from. It paints the page titles, CSS, body tag, etc. It returns
	nothing (<span class="new_code">void</span>).</li>
	<li><span class="new_code">void paintFooter(string
	$test_name)</span> <br>
	Called at the very end of the test to close any tags opened by the page
	header. By default it also displays the red/green bar and the final
	count of results. Actually the end of the test happens when a test end
	event comes in with the same name as the one that started it all at the
	same level. The tests nest you see. Closing the last test finishes the
	display.</li>
	<li><span class="new_code">void paintMethodStart(string
	$test_name)</span> <br>
	is called at the start of each test method. The name normally comes
	from method name. The other test start events behave the same way
	except that the group test one tells the reporter how large it is in
	number of held test cases. This is so that the reporter can display a
	progress bar as the runner churns through the test cases.</li>
	<li><span class="new_code">void paintMethodEnd(string
	$test_name)</span> <br>
	backs out of the test started with the same name.</li>
	<li><span class="new_code">void paintFail(string $message)</span>
	<br>
	paints a failure. By default it just displays the word fail, a
	breadcrumbs trail showing the current test nesting and the message
	issued by the assertion.</li>
	<li><span class="new_code">void paintPass(string $message)</span>
	<br>
	by default does nothing.</li>
	<li><span class="new_code">string _getCss()</span> <br>
	Returns the CSS styles as a string for the page header method.
	Additional styles have to be appended here if you are not overriding
	the page header. You will want to use this method in an overriden page
	header if you want to include the original CSS.</li>
</ul>
There are also some accessors to get information on the current state of
the test suite. Use these to enrich the display...
<ul class="api">
	<li><span class="new_code">array getTestList()</span> <br>
	is the first convenience method for subclasses. Lists the current
	nesting of the tests as a list of test names. The first, most deeply
	nested test, is first in the list and the current test method will be
	last.</li>
	<li><span class="new_code">integer getPassCount()</span> <br>
	returns the number of passes chalked up so far. Needed for the display
	at the end.</li>
	<li><span class="new_code">integer getFailCount()</span> <br>
	is likewise the number of fails so far.</li>
	<li><span class="new_code">integer getExceptionCount()</span> <br>
	is likewise the number of errors so far.</li>
	<li><span class="new_code">integer getTestCaseCount()</span> <br>
	is the total number of test cases in the test run. This includes the
	grouping tests themselves.</li>
	<li><span class="new_code">integer getTestCaseProgress()</span> <br>
	is the number of test cases completed so far.</li>
</ul>
One simple modification is to get the HtmlReporter to display the passes
as well as the failures and errors... <pre>
<strong>class ShowPasses extends HtmlReporter {
    
    function paintPass($message) {
        parent::paintPass($message);
        print "&amp;&lt;span class=\"pass\"&gt;Pass&lt;/span&gt;: ";
        $breadcrumb = $this-&gt;getTestList();
        array_shift($breadcrumb);
        print implode("-&amp;gt;", $breadcrumb);
        print "-&amp;gt;$message&lt;br /&gt;\n";
    }
    
    function _getCss() {
        return parent::_getCss() . ' .pass { color: green; }';
    }
}</strong>
</pre>
</p>
<p>One method that was glossed over was the <span class="new_code">makeDry()</span>
method. If you run this method, with no parameters, on the reporter
before the test suite is run no actual test methods will be called. You
will still get the events of entering and leaving the test methods and
test cases, but no passes or failures etc, because the test code will
not actually be executed.</p>
<p>The reason for this is to allow for more sophistcated GUI
displays that allow the selection of individual test cases. In order to
build a list of possible tests they need a report on the test structure
for drawing, say a tree view of the test suite. With a reporter set to
dry run that just sends drawing events this is easily accomplished.</p>

<p><a class="target" name="other">
<h2>Extending the reporter</h2>
</a></p>
<p>Rather than simply modifying the existing display, you might want
to produce a whole new HTML look, or even generate text or XML. Rather
than override every method in <span class="new_code">HtmlReporter</span>
we can take one step up the class hiearchy to <span class="new_code">SimpleReporter</span>
in the <em>simple_test.php</em> source file.</p>
<p>A do nothing display, a blank canvas for your own creation, would
be...
<pre>
<strong>require_once('simpletest/simple_test.php');</strong>

class MyDisplay extends SimpleReporter {<strong>
    </strong>
    function paintHeader($test_name) {
    }
    
    function paintFooter($test_name) {
    }
    
    function paintStart($test_name, $size) {<strong>
        parent::paintStart($test_name, $size);</strong>
    }
    
    function paintEnd($test_name, $size) {<strong>
        parent::paintEnd($test_name, $size);</strong>
    }
    
    function paintPass($message) {<strong>
        parent::paintPass($message);</strong>
    }
    
    function paintFail($message) {<strong>
        parent::paintFail($message);</strong>
    }
}
</pre> No output would come from this class until you add it.
</p>

<p><a class="target" name="cli">
<h2>The command line reporter</h2>
</a></p>
<p>SimpleTest also ships with a minimal command line reporter. The
interface mimics JUnit to some extent, but paints the failure messages
as they arrive. To use the command line reporter simply substitute it
for the HTML version...
<pre>
&lt;?php
    require_once('simpletest/unit_tester.php');
    require_once('simpletest/reporter.php');

    $test = &amp;new TestSuite('File test');
    $test-&gt;addTestFile('tests/file_test.php');
    $test-&gt;run(<strong>new TextReporter()</strong>);
?&gt;
</pre> Then invoke the test suite from the command line... <pre class="shell">
php file_test.php
</pre> You will need the command line version of PHP installed of course. A
passing test suite looks like this... <pre class="shell">
File test
OK
Test cases run: 1/1, Failures: 0, Exceptions: 0
</pre> A failure triggers a display like this... <pre class="shell">
File test
1) True assertion failed.
	in createnewfile
FAILURES!!!
Test cases run: 1/1, Failures: 1, Exceptions: 0
</pre>
</p>
<p>One of the main reasons for using a command line driven test
suite is of using the tester as part of some automated process. To
function properly in shell scripts the test script should return a
non-zero exit code on failure. If a test suite fails the value <span
	class="new_code">false</span> is returned from the <span
	class="new_code">SimpleTest::run()</span> method. We can use that
result to exit the script with the desired return code...
<pre>
&lt;?php
    require_once('simpletest/unit_tester.php');
    require_once('simpletest/reporter.php');

    $test = &amp;new TestSuite('File test');
    $test-&gt;addTestFile('tests/file_test.php');
    <strong>exit ($test-&gt;run(new TextReporter()) ? 0 : 1);</strong>
?&gt;
</pre> Of course we don't really want to create two test scripts, a command
line one and a web browser one, for each test suite. The command line
reporter includes a method to sniff out the run time environment... <pre>
&lt;?php
    require_once('simpletest/unit_tester.php');
    require_once('simpletest/reporter.php');

    $test = &amp;new TestSuite('File test');
    $test-&gt;addTestFile('tests/file_test.php');
    <strong>if (TextReporter::inCli()) {</strong>
        exit ($test-&gt;run(new TextReporter()) ? 0 : 1);
    <strong>}</strong>
    $test-&gt;run(new HtmlReporter());
?&gt;
</pre> This is the form used within SimpleTest itself.
</p>

<p><a class="target" name="xml">
<h2>Remote testing</h2>
</a></p>
<p>SimpleTest ships with an <span class="new_code">XmlReporter</span>
class used for internal communication. When run the output looks like...

<pre class="shell">
&lt;?xml version="1.0"?&gt;
&lt;run&gt;
  &lt;group size="4"&gt;
    &lt;name&gt;Remote tests&lt;/name&gt;
    &lt;group size="4"&gt;
      &lt;name&gt;Visual test with 48 passes, 48 fails and 4 exceptions&lt;/name&gt;
      &lt;case&gt;
        &lt;name&gt;testofunittestcaseoutput&lt;/name&gt;
        &lt;test&gt;
          &lt;name&gt;testofresults&lt;/name&gt;
          &lt;pass&gt;This assertion passed&lt;/pass&gt;
          &lt;fail&gt;This assertion failed&lt;/fail&gt;
        &lt;/test&gt;
        &lt;test&gt;
          ...
        &lt;/test&gt;
      &lt;/case&gt;
    &lt;/group&gt;
  &lt;/group&gt;
&lt;/run&gt;
</pre> You can make use of this format with the parser supplied as part of
SimpleTest itself. This is called <span class="new_code">SimpleTestXmlParser</span>
and resides in <em>xml.php</em> within the SimpleTest package... <pre>
&lt;?php
    require_once('simpletest/xml.php');
    
    ...
    $parser = &amp;new SimpleTestXmlParser(new HtmlReporter());
    $parser-&gt;parse($test_output);
?&gt;
</pre> The <span class="new_code">$test_output</span> should be the XML format
from the XML reporter, and could come from say a command line run of a
test case. The parser sends events to the reporter just like any other
test run. There are some odd occasions where this is actually useful.
</p>
<p>A problem with large test suites is thet they can exhaust the
default 8Mb memory limit on a PHP process. By having the test groups
output in XML and run in separate processes, the output can be reparsed
to aggregate the results into a much smaller footprint top level test.</p>
<p>Because the XML output can come from anywhere, this opens up the
possibility of aggregating test runs from remote servers. A test case
already exists to do this within the SimpleTest framework, but it is
currently experimental...
<pre>
&lt;?php
    <strong>require_once('../remote.php');</strong>
    require_once('../reporter.php');
    
    $test_url = ...;
    $dry_url = ...;
    
    $test = &amp;new TestSuite('Remote tests');
    $test-&gt;addTestCase(<strong>new RemoteTestCase($test_url, $dry_url)</strong>);
    $test-&gt;run(new HtmlReporter());
?&gt;
</pre> The <span class="new_code">RemoteTestCase</span> takes the actual
location of the test runner, basically a web page in XML format. It also
takes the URL of a reporter set to do a dry run. This is so that
progress can be reported upward correctly. The <span class="new_code">RemoteTestCase</span>
can be added to test suites just like any other group test.
</p>

</div>
References and related information...
<ul>
	<li>SimpleTest project page on <a
		href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/simpletest/">SourceForge</a>.</li>
	<li>SimpleTest download page on <a
		href="http://www.lastcraft.com/simple_test.php">LastCraft</a>.</li>
	<li>The <a href="http://simpletest.sourceforge.net/">developer's
	API for SimpleTest</a> gives full detail on the classes and assertions
	available.</li>
</ul>
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<div class="copyright">Copyright<br>
Marcus Baker 2006</div>
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